The Senior Walking Fitness Blog

Hello Everybody,  

The holiday season is nearly here. What should you do to maintain your fitness program? The first thing to ask yourself is, do you really want to try and maintain your fitness program? After all, you could spend a couple of weeks sitting in the sun, eating and drinking whatever is available. No harm in that as long as you work off the weight you will have put on afterwards.

But a compromise might be a better way. The more weight you put on when you are on holiday the more you will need to take off when you get home. So the less weight you gain the less trouble you will have losing it. High fat, high sugar foods cause weight gain. Try having just one main meal a day and eat fruit ( washed or peeled) or just a light snack the rest of the time. Avoid nibbles. A handful of crisps equals 110 calories, a handful of peanuts 150 calories. If you really must nibble eat olives. An olive is only 3 calories, a handful maybe 30 calories. A lot better than crisps or peanuts. Do not cut out breakfast, you will just eat more later. Try to eat small portions of all meals. Drink only moderate amounts of alcohol. Bottled water is much better than fizzy drinks. Carry a bottle in hot climates. But do not turn this into an obsession. You are on holiday to relax and enjoy yourself. If that involves eating more than usual so be it.

If possible you should try to take some exercise. Half an hour’s walking a day is fine. An hour’s walking is better. There can be danger of getting too much exercise on holiday. People who are very unfit can find themselves cycling uphill, swimming or (the mind boggles) playing beach volley ball. Particularly if you are overweight going from no exercise to sudden spurts of effort is not a good idea. What is a good idea is to begin a walking fitness program a couple of months before you go on holiday. You will get fit, and even lose a few pounds, before you begin the holiday games.

But if you are fit enough for a more active holiday you might want to know how many calories you can burn off in half an hour. This is what you can do.

Walking 100 cal.

Diving 100 cal.

Horse Riding 120 cal.

Table Tennis 120 cal.

Cycling 150 cal.

Swimming 250 cal.

Tennis 250 cal.

It is worth noting that it takes half an hour’s cycling to burn off that handful of peanuts.

Never forget that a holiday is for enjoyment. It is for spiritual as well as physical health and if your idea of a good time is to spend a fortnight eating, drinking and doing absolutely nothing do so. Stop thinking about your fitness program for a fortnight. Just make sure you send us a postcard.

See you soon,

30 May 2010

Photo. Nigel Tomm

Technorati Tags: aids slimming, fitness blog, outside exercise, senior walking, silver slimming, walking fitness program

Hello Everybody,

Why don’t you lose body weight? You have tried everything but you still stay the same. You just yo-yo from one diet to the next and your body weight comes back every time you stop. The answer is that you haven’t tried everything. You have just tried different forms of the same thing. The old business maxim applies - ‘do the same thing, get the same results.’

There may be reasons you have not thought about. Age can be a factor. To lose weight we need to do two things, consume fewer calories and take more exercise. If, for whatever reason, you exercise less as you get older you will need to eat less just to maintain your usual weight. If you want to lose weight without exercise you will have to eat a lot less. It can be done. There is no reason why you cannot weigh the same as you did when you were twenty years old. It is just a matter of wanting to do it.

Stress can cause a build up of fat around the midriff. Stress causes the production of cortical. This, along with adrenalin, is one of those ‘fight or flight’ hormones which our ancestors released when they saw a sabre toothed tiger. Now we release it when we see a sabre toothed boss, but the effect is the same. One of the results of long term stress is that cortical stores fat around our middle in order that it is easily available for extra energy. It also slows down our metabolic rate, so we do not burn up fat as quickly.

Another result of stress is comfort eating, which puts on fat everywhere. So a stressed person can be a fat person.

Some medication makes you fat. Steroids are a particular problem and are prescribed for a lot of illnesses. They do not themselves make you fat, but they do make you hungry and it is eating more that makes you over weight. The smaller the dose the less hungry you will become, so doctors do try to limit your intake. But steroids are bad news for weight loss.

That might explain why you cannot lose body weight, but for most people it doesn’t. The usual reason is that when they stop their diet they just go back to eating what they ate before. It’s wonderful now the diet is over and they have lost some weight. Why not celebrate a little? Or maybe a lot. Soon they are eating what made them fat in the first place. Remember our business maxim - ‘do the same thing, get the same results.’ It is about to be proved right.

I am back to advising a change of lifestyle. After all the old one didn’t work so it may be time to try a new one. So what should you do? Start slowly and do not expect rapid results. Look at what you are eating. Fats, sugars and fizzy drinks will make you put on weight. Increase your consumption of fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, lean meat and fish. Phase out fried food and drink less alcohol. Easiest of all, be like the slim French. Eat smaller portions. If you only lose a pound a week that is fine. Keep it up and in under four months you will be a stone lighter.

Your more healthy diet should be combined with exercise. As we said, losing weight just by eating healthy food is possible. But it is slower than combining it with exercise and nothing like as good for you. Aerobic exercise, such as walking, jogging, swimming or cycling strengthens the heart and burns off fat. The easiest exercise for most people is walking. Anybody can do it, whether they live in a town or in the countryside. Try to do an hour a day at a moderate speed. This can be split into two half hour sessions if it is more convenient. Do this every day - try to get into the habit of going for your daily walk.

That is all there is to losing body weight. Do not become obsessive about what you eat, just know what’s in it. Beware of labels telling you something is healthy. Check the calories on the label - if you can find the figures in the small print - you may be amazed at the number of calories in a ‘healthy’ sandwich. But do not spend all your time counting calories, that way madness lies. Try to walk to the shops rather than drive and use the stairs rather than the lift. Just remember to exercise every day and eat more healthy food. This way you will become slim and, more importantly, you will stay slim for life.

See you soon,

23 May 2010

Photo. gspss (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: i can't lose weight, lose body weight, lose weight diet, lose weight fat, walking exercise, walking fitness, weight fat

Hello Everybody, 

Lifetime fitness is something we would all like to achieve. But if so far you have only achieved lifetime unfitness do not worry. You can start a fitness program right away. It need not cost you anything.

There is, of course, fitness and super fitness. The fitness industry, which for some reason seems obsessed with six packs, is a multi million dollar operation. It provides everything from gyms and personal trainers to a multiplicity of equipment all aimed at helping people achieve a high level of fitness. This is fine but for most of us fitness means being reasonably slim and feeling and looking as good as we can manage.

All we need for this level of lifetime fitness is a good pair of walking shoes and a careful look at our diet and lifestyle.

Just as there is fitness and fitness there are diets and diets. I recently found some diets I would not recommend to anybody. We have the Master Cleanse Diet. This involves the consumption of 6-12 glasses a day of a mixture of maple syrup, lemon juice, water and cayenne pepper - yes, cayenne pepper. This is one of those detoxification diets that does nothing your liver and kidneys cannot do all by themselves. Another is the Blood Type Diet, the contents of which is adjusted for different blood types. There is, of course, nothing to show that blood type has anything to do with successful weight loss. There are many more diets of a similar nature, some of which may well reduce your weight quickly. But you cannot live for ever on a crash diet and when you stop your weight will come back on again.

For lifetime fitness you need a lifestyle change not a short term diet. You need to eat healthy food such as fresh vegetables, fruit, pulses, oily fish and lean meat. This, in its various forms, is the Mediterranean diet which I have advocated many times. I only do so because it works and the food is enjoyable. There are a lot French, Greek and Italian recipes available using simple healthy ingredients which will help you lose weight as well as enjoying what you eat. You can even drink the occasional glass of wine with your food. So why spend your time drinking cayenne pepper when you could be eating a pleasant meal?

I suggest walking as a form of exercise because it is enjoyable and, unlike some types of exercise, can easily be continued as we get older. Having said this it takes a while to lose calories just by walking. An hour of average speed walking only burns off the calories in a hot cross bun or a medium sized bar of chocolate. But if you want to lose more in the same time swimming or cycling will do it for you. Whatever you decide to do try and exercise for an hour every day. This need not be all at once. Half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening is fine, or even several shorter periods. Just try to fit in an hour a day.

So with exercise and a healthy diet you will be well on your way to achieving lifetime fitness and all without drinking cayenne pepper or checking your blood type. It is not difficult and you can have a good time doing it as well.

See you soon,

15 May 2010

Photo. Emily Wimset

Technorati Tags: fitness, health tips, lifetime fitness, lose weight, successful weight loss, walking fitness, weight loss

Hello Everybody,

How do French men and women stay slim? Surely they should have a weight problem. Their cities are full of boulangeries selling mouth watering cakes and pastries. Parisians can be seen carrying calorie rich baguettes and bottles of wine. A meal may last an afternoon. The French live in a gourmet’s paradise and yet they fail to put on weight.

To be fair they are not all slim, but more are slim than fat by a large margin. Just look at the statistics - 30% of Americans are overweight, 23% British and under 10% French. It is a big difference. How do they do it?

It is not so much what they eat as how they eat. They may take a long time over a meal, but the portions are not large. The French enjoy conversation, this slows things down enormously. They drink wine, but generally in moderation. There is no tradition of excessive beer drinking as in Anglo Saxon countries. Beer contains more calories than wine and binge drinking on beer is binging on calories. The French do not drink to get drunk like many Anglo Saxons and so they drink less.

In France there is not the problem of overweight teenagers and we know that fat teenagers become fat adults. The reason is that young French men and women are tres sportif. Competitive cycling is a national obsession and, particularly in the south with its mild climate, water sports are popular as well. Walking is normal. Children are encouraged to walk to school and at weekends families enjoy rambles in the countryside or in local parks. The facilities are there. Even in a great city like Paris the Bois de Boulogne gives people three square miles of parkland for rest and recreation. Other cities in other countries have parks, but the French seem to use theirs for exercise more than most.

It is a different and more healthy lifestyle which shows that, if eaten in moderation and with enough exercise, fats, sugars and carbohydrates do not necessarily cause weight gain. There are no secrets in looking like a Parisian. Just eat less, take more exercise, relax and you will stay slim. You can start at home, buy smaller plates and remember to throw out those beers in the fridge. Have a continental breakfast, drink black coffee, do not snack on junk food and sit down to two meals a day. You don’t have time? Make time. The French are not layabouts, they just see the importance of living a healthy longer life. You can do the same.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

6 May 2010

Photo. James P. Wells

Technorati Tags: fat adults, fat teenagers, how to stay slim, overweight adults, overweight teenagers, stay slim, stay thin

Hello Everybody, 

We used to think of obesity as a problem of older people. You reach 40, slow down, enjoy good food, get fat. The ‘middle-age spread’ was well known and is still with us. But now obesity affects all age groups. In America there are concerns that it may even harm the security of the nation. Two retired generals - John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton - have warned that ‘Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military.’

It seems that over a quarter of potential military recruits are ruled out because they are just too fat to fight. Fitness and military service have long gone together. There would have been little point in the Grand Old Duke of York marching 10,000 men to the top of the hill if 2500 collapsed exhausted on the way up. Every army needs men on the ground but not if they are flat on their backs breathing heavily.

So how did this come about? In America school lunch laws were introduced in 1946 to improve the nutrition of the nation. Sadly they are now having the opposite effect. To save money schools are serving frozen and processed foods high in sugars, fats and calories. Healthy food is expensive food in the eyes of the schools and so children are fed junk. Add to this what kids eat when they are away from school, and a tendency to play computer games or watch TV at home rather than exercise, and we have fat children. These go on to become fat adults who in their turn become parents of the next generation of fat children.

Solving the problem will not be easy. It will need legislation and there are moves in America to bring this about. But consider the British experience.

In 2006 the British government banned junk food from schools. This set off a mini riot from parents supporting their children’s human right to eat junk food and get as fat as they liked.

In 2007 rules regarding food sold in school vending machines, tuck shops and breakfast clubs were put in place.

In 2008 new nutritional standards for school meals became law.

This was an excellent program backed up with public service TV advertising to promote healthy eating. However the result of all this is that only one third of secondary school pupils are eating school meals. The other two thirds bring their own lunches, which probably contain the junk food they were deprived of by an authoritarian government which interfered in their freedom of choice. I wish the Americans luck.

This may seem totally divorced from Senior Fitness but it is not. As we have seen fat children become fat adults who in turn become fat Seniors - if the have not died of obesity related illnesses before then. Obese people must change to a healthy diet. We all know what junk food is. Give it up. Then eat more fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meat, oily fish like mackerel and pulses. Do not drink fizzy drinks and that includes Diet Coke. Then begin a walking exercise program or any other exercise you enjoy. Do it every day for at least half an hour and you will lose weight. It’s easy.

See you soon,

3 May 2010

Photo. Saumoon (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: healthy exercise, lose weight, middle age spread, obesity, outside exercise, stop eating junk food